"This gets beyond a jest," he told himself. "Because I happened to mention, accidentally, that La France roses were my favourite flowers, I didn't expect to find a bouquet of them on my table every morning awaiting my arrival. Either it means something or it doesn't; either way I don't like it. I'm getting three hundred pounds a year in cash for doing I don't quite know what, and apparently half as much again in flowers. It won't do--it will not do." He gave the unoffending roses an impatient twirl. "The point of the joke is that when I said La France roses were my favourite flowers I was speaking a little beside the mark. I don't know that I have a favourite flower. They're Meg's--I was thinking of her at the time, as I generally am. I don't want Mrs. Lamb to think that she is giving me flowers, when she is really giving them to Meg, to whom I invariably pass them on. I don't know that she would really relish the notion of my giving her flowers to some one else. Confound her impudence!" He threw the roses from him on to the table with a show of roughness which they, at any rate, had done nothing to deserve. As if conscious that his temper was being vented in the wrong quarter, picking them up again he regarded them with looks of whimsical self-reproach. While he was still eyeing them the door was opened, and a masculine voice inquired from without-- "May I come in?" Without waiting for a reply the inquirer entered. It was Mr. Gregory Lamb. A much more resplendent Gregory Lamb than the one whose acquaintance we have previously made. The Gregory Lamb we met in the wood was purely an affair of make-believe--not of very plausible make-believe. His attire then looked as if it wished you to think it had cost a great deal of money--but the trained eye knew better. There could be no doubt that everything about this Gregory Lamb was the most expensive of its kind--only the trained eye knew really how expensive. The impression he conveyed was that he had got as much on him in the way of money as he conveniently could--probably that impression was not far wrong. Yet the result was scarcely satisfactory. Especially was this shown to be the case when he brought himself into comparison with the man who was already in the room.